Lord, you give the great commission

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Lord, you give the great commission” by Jeffery Rowthorn to a tune by the great Edwardian composer C H H Parry.  Its theme follows on from Sunday’s discussion of ordination and yesterday’s of the “enduing” or bestowing of gifts by the Holy Spirit, as each verse ends with the lines “With the Spirit’s gifts empower us for the work of ministry”.

The rest of the words of the five verses are based on various recorded sayings of Jesus in the gospels, mainly the ‘Great Commission’ to teach and baptise all nations in the final paragraph of Matthew’s gospel (although some commentators think this is Matthew’s understanding of what Jesus might have said, rather than a record of an actual event).  It also references the Last Supper in the third verse, and the exhortations to forgive others and be generous in our giving in the fourth.   

The words that are rhymed with “ministry” in the second half of each verse give a good summary of the Church’s mission: integrity, community, liberty, society, eternity.  Whether consciously or not, they reflect the Anglican ‘five marks of mission’ which in abbreviated form are: to proclaim the Good News (one might say of eternity); to teach, baptise and nurture new believers (into the liberty of the children of God, as Paul puts it); to respond to human need by loving service (forming community); to transform unjust structures of society; and to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation.

The last verse returns to the very end of Matthew: “I am with you always, to the end of the age”.  Jesus – if indeed he did say this – must have been aware that as his physical presence was about to depart for the last time, the growth of the Church and its continuing mission would depend on his disciples and their successors who had not seen him having faith in his continued unseen presence and through the work of the Holy Spirit.